The annual Unified Engineering (16.01-16.04) Flight Competition took place in early May. This year, ten teams were asked to build an RC airplane that could achieve a balance between payload and speed. The competition saw ups, downs, loops, and dives—and Team Eight won the day. Congratulations to Suchitha Channapatna, Dashiell DeStefano, Sammy Krem, and Annika Vaidyanathan!
The course is considered a rite of passage for Course 16 sophomores, equipping them with a solid understanding of the fundamental disciplines of aerospace engineering, as well as their relationships and applications. The Flight Competition is the highlight of the course, where students apply their knowledge to design and engineer an RC airplane that performs a different objective function that is chosen each year.
The students also took part in Unified Engineering Flying Day, flying out of Hanscom Field with pilots Prof. John Hansman and Grayson Bertania ‘25. During the flight, they performed several maneuvers and gained hands-on aviation experience.
This year’s course was instructed by Prof. Adrian Lozano-Duran and TA’d by Julian Powers (CTG). Prof. Mark Drela piloted each of the planes during the competition.
